Atheism requires as much faith as religion? bearvspuma : The only problem with this rationalization is that ita s assuming all athiests are so because theya re intelligent in the ways of science and reasoning and all people that believe in a form of god are unintelligent.
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If macro evolution is real.The horseshoe crab would be building and riding jet skis by now. Or perhaps even something more advanced like the hovercraft.Oh but they stopped evolving just 500 million years ago. Theyíre not a good example of this evolution thing.

What's your reasoning here? Why would a crab with a body shape well suited for its environment change? Why would it become intelligent? What selection pressures would push it to be intelligent?

No, Eagle, they did not stop evolving. The horseshoe crab you see today is not the same species as the one in the past. They have speciated several times. The current one evolved around 18 million years ago. Remember? I already posted a link to an article by the world's leading horseshoe crab expert. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "that's a malicious untruth."

1) Do you not follow my links b/c you're genuinely not interested in knowing how and what science has evidence for?2) Are you incapable of learning?3) Or did you just miss the post?

<quoted text>What's your reasoning here? Why would a crab with a body shape well suited for its environment change? Why would it become intelligent? What selection pressures would push it to be intelligent?No, Eagle, they did not stop evolving. The horseshoe crab you see today is not the same species as the one in the past. They have speciated several times. The current one evolved around 18 million years ago. Remember? I already posted a link to an article by the world's leading horseshoe crab expert. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, "that's a malicious untruth."1) Do you not follow my links b/c you're genuinely not interested in knowing how and what science has evidence for?2) Are you incapable of learning?3) Or did you just miss the post?

There's a leading Horseshoe crab expert? Awesome. How sad would it be to be the second best Horseshoe crab expert?

You know I wonder how the world would be today if say Zeus and Odin were still the primary gods?Believers of the different gods meet up, state why their God is better, have a few drinks, arm wrestling matches with the victor proclaiming his/her God was the better after all, more drinks and some roasted meat, finally upon leaving the debate they both agree that Odin and Zeus are both awesome gods who work together and are probably shaking their heads at how their earthly believers had behaved this night.Each walks home thinking with a chuckle, that Zeus/Odin worshipper can't handle their booze yet we must do this again.<quoted text>

hahaha, totally!

You'd want to be careful around Bacchus followers, though, they would drink you under the table every single time.

If living organisms *can* evolve, but not necessarily *do* evolve, based on "environmental pressure"... I got one question.........Why the f_ck would plants evolve???

Species evolve, not individuals. Say it with me. Species evolve, not individuals. One more time? Species evolve, not individuals.

Next: Why do plants evolve?

Do you honestly believe that the environments of animals change while plant environments remain exactly the same? Are you trying to tell us that, throughout world history, the environments of plants never changes? How the hell does the animal's environment change, but not that of plants?!?

The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs had no effect on plants, RR? Volcanoes, no effect on plants? Global climate changes, no effect on plants?

What do you think plants do? They just sit there, happily being eaten by insects and animals - and there's no selection pressure?

Plants are not mobile. They are attacked by insects, viruses, fungi, bacteria and animals. Other plants also parasitize them and plants compete for sunlight. All of these act as selection pressure on plants - just like animals, those that can survive and reproduce better will have their genes represented in higher proportion in the next generation.

Plants produce toxins to deal with insects. Insects evolve around those toxins - but they have to specialize to do so. That's why each plant species almost invariably has an insect species that only eats it. That's why we have the carrot beetle, the tomato worm, etc. Because only those species of insects can get around the plant's toxin defenses to eat it.

But if plants focus on producing too much toxin, they can't divert energy and resources to getting taller and bigger. Then other plants beat them out for the sunlight. This is why, if you look at your garden, some species grow really fast but are eaten more (less poison production), while others grow slowly but are eaten quite a bit less.

In short, plants are competing with other plants and everything that eats them. Their environment changes with each new input - new insect, new plant, new gene in a rival plant, etc.

Christianity has a history of using force to promote its message when it can. It has a history of colluding with tyrants to get its message across. It has a history of lying to get converts.

In fact, you used this message of dishonesty in the prove thread by purposefully misquoting a prominent evolutionary biologist, Richard Lewontin. He wrote something very, very important to the philosophy of science and, by removing select wording, you turned it into religious propaganda.

So we all see how your religion works and how it is unethically pushed on others.

<quoted text>Species evolve, not individuals. Say it with me. Species evolve, not individuals. One more time? Species evolve, not individuals.Next: Why do plants evolve?Do you honestly believe that the environments of animals change while plant environments remain exactly the same? Are you trying to tell us that, throughout world history, the environments of plants never changes? How the hell does the animal's environment change, but not that of plants?!?The meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs had no effect on plants, RR? Volcanoes, no effect on plants? Global climate changes, no effect on plants?What do you think plants do? They just sit there, happily being eaten by insects and animals - and there's no selection pressure?Plants are not mobile. They are attacked by insects, viruses, fungi, bacteria and animals. Other plants also parasitize them and plants compete for sunlight. All of these act as selection pressure on plants - just like animals, those that can survive and reproduce better will have their genes represented in higher proportion in the next generation.Plants produce toxins to deal with insects. Insects evolve around those toxins - but they have to specialize to do so. That's why each plant species almost invariably has an insect species that only eats it. That's why we have the carrot beetle, the tomato worm, etc. Because only those species of insects can get around the plant's toxin defenses to eat it.But if plants focus on producing too much toxin, they can't divert energy and resources to getting taller and bigger. Then other plants beat them out for the sunlight. This is why, if you look at your garden, some species grow really fast but are eaten more (less poison production), while others grow slowly but are eaten quite a bit less.In short, plants are competing with other plants and everything that eats them. Their environment changes with each new input - new insect, new plant, new gene in a rival plant, etc.

Teacher, could you give us a 4000 character lecture on how species evolve without individuals of said species contributing to the phenomenon along the way?

<quoted text>You - all people - are a product of both environment and genetics. There's no other way, unless you want to add magic.Education makes people atheists. I never teach atheism in my class - not the place to - but I teach critical thinking. That's enough for the smarter students to start reflecting on the nature of religion.To be honest, a lot of students come to me, to make fun of religion. I think there's a much higher percentage of atheists among those going through university now.Eagle, your religion has been promoted and is promoted everywhere - TV shows, media, violations of personal space, people walking around pushing it. The amount of atheist media compared to Christian media is insignificant, a tiny fraction. Your complaint here is a joke.Imagine if we demanded equal time to be heard how upset you'd be.Personally, we should teach children about all religions in elementary school. Don't even bother with atheism, just define it in one class or something.

Atheism is very cunning when itís being taught in education and universities. Itís not in your face but itís there.

Atheist have the right approach when it comes to marketing their ideology. Except when they put up a sign on a freeway. They seem to get a pretty good backlash from it.

Iím ok with people choosing to be atheist if that is what they want to believe. As long as they donít block my freedom of choice and right to freedom of religion.

<quoted text>Christianity has a history of using force to promote its message when it can. It has a history of colluding with tyrants to get its message across. It has a history of lying to get converts.In fact, you used this message of dishonesty in the prove thread by purposefully misquoting a prominent evolutionary biologist, Richard Lewontin. He wrote something very, very important to the philosophy of science and, by removing select wording, you turned it into religious propaganda.So we all see how your religion works and how it is unethically pushed on others.

Atheist Leaders and the number of deaths from wiki

Russia/Soviet UnionVladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870ó1924): Marxist revolutionary and leader of the Bolsheviks. Lenin considered atheist and anti-religious propaganda to be essential to promoting communism.[18] Nikita Khrushchev (1894Ė1971): Soviet General Secretary, 1953Ė1964.,[19][20] Joseph Stalin: General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953.[21] Leon Trotsky (1879Ė1940): Marxist theorist.[22] Mikhail Gorbachev (1931Ė): Former Soviet president

Jiang Zemin (1926Ė): Chinese communist politician, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China 1989Ė2002 and President of China 1993Ė2003.[3] Mao Zedong (1893Ė1976): Chinese military and political leader, who led the Communist Party of China to victory in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People's Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Under his leadership, China officially became an atheist state

the introduction, editor Stťphane Courtois asserts that "...Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". He cites a death toll which totals 94 million, not counting the "excess deaths" (decrease of the population due to lower than-expected birth rates). The breakdown of the number of deaths given by Courtois is as follows:65 million in the People's Republic of China 20 million in the Soviet Union[3] 2 million in Cambodia 2 million in North Korea 1.7 million in Africa 1.5 million in Afghanistan 1 million in the Communist states of Eastern Europe 1 million in Vietnam[4] 150,000 in Latin America 10,000 deaths "resulting from actions of the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power."(p. 4)

<quoted text>In the case of the horseshoe crab. I guarantee you the pressures and itís environment has changed plenty in 500 million years. Yet it has remained unchanged in 500 million years.So Evolutionist come up with this response that it didnít need to change because itís suited for itís environment. 500 million years is a hell of a long time.

Uh...baby...it has undergone evolution. Again, the horseshoe crab you are looking at is a different species than the one of hundreds of millions of years ago. You just refuse to listen.

Here, paper demonstrating that modern horseshoe crabs are different than those in the past. It's technical, but perhaps that technicality will provide you some insight on why your comments are grossly oversimplified to the point of not containing information.

"The basic arrangement of limbs in euarthropods consists of a uniramous head appendage followed by a series of biramous appendages. The body is divided into functional units or tagmata which are usually distinguished by further differentiation of the limbs. The living horseshoe crabs are remnants of a much larger diversity of aquatic chelicerates. The limbs of the anterior and posterior divisions of the body of living horseshoe crabs differ in the loss of the outer and inner ramus, respectively, of an ancestral biramous limb. Here we report a new fossil horseshoe crab from the mid-Silurian Lagerstštte in Herefordshire, United Kingdom (approximately 425 Myr B.P.), a site that has yielded a remarkably preserved assemblage of soft-bodied fossils. The limbs of the new form can be homologized with those of living Limulus, but retain an ancestral biramous morphology. Remarkably, however, the two limb branches originate separately, providing fossil evidence to suggest that repression or loss of gene expression might have given rise to the appendage morphology of Limulus. Both branches of the prosomal limbs of this new fossil are robust and segmented in contrast to their morphology in Cambrian arthropods, revealing that a true biramous limb was once present in chelicerates as well as in the mandibulates."

<quoted text>Atheism is very cunning when itís being taught in education and universities. Itís not in your face but itís there.Atheist have the right approach when it comes to marketing their ideology. Except when they put up a sign on a freeway. They seem to get a pretty good backlash from it.Iím ok with people choosing to be atheist if that is what they want to believe. As long as they donít block my freedom of choice and right to freedom of religion.

No atheist attempts to block your freedom of choice.

Christianity is everywhere in America. It's impossible to get away from it. You're just being sensitive because another voice is being heard - and, given that atheism meshes with evidence and provides critical thinking, intelligent young people are giving up religion.

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